It is advantageous in many commercial applications to have strong adhesion between polymers (e.g., plastic resin coatings) and various substrate surfaces. Polymer coatings may be used, for example, to protect underlying surfaces from environmental and atmospheric conditions. In this manner, polymer coatings are useful in increasing the durability and extending the “life” of various surfaces, including glass optical fibers and mirrors. Adhesion is particularly important in high humidity and high temperature environments, where there is an increased risk of delaminating or “peeling” a polymer coating from a surface.
Various adhesion promoters have been used in an effort to improve the adhesive strength and durability of adhesion of polymers to surfaces. Silane coupling agents have been used to improve, for example, the adhesion of polymer coatings to glass optical fibers, the consolidation of fillers and reinforcements into a polymeric resin matrix, and the water repellency of ceramics. Certain of these common silane coupling agents are described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,527,835, issued Jun. 18, 1996 to Shustack; other embodiments of this principle were elucidated by Warner at al. (WO 99/11454), Setiabudi (U.S. Pat. No. 6,001,909), and Cagliostro at al. (Journal of Advanced Materials 1999, 31, 27-35). Commercially available organotitanate, aluminate, and -zirconate compounds such as those offered by Kenrich Petrochemicals, Inc. are also useful for improving the adhesion and compatibility of polymers with a wide variety of mineral, metallic, inorganic, rubber, and plastic resin fillers, reinforcements, and surfaces (see, for example, (a) Monte, S. J. and Sugerman, G., Kenrich Petrochemicals, Inc., “Ken-React® Reference Manual—Titanate, Zirconate, and Aluminate Coupling Agents.” (Bulletin KR 0395), 227 pages, (Summer 1993—Second Revised Edition); (b) Monte, S. J. Rubber Technology International '96; (c) Dawson, B. Rubber and Plastics News, Sep. 21, 1998; (d) Monte, S. J. Reinforced Plastics, June 1996 and references therein) the disclosures of each of which are incorporated herein by reference.
It is known in the art to use organo-functional silanes to promote adhesion of polymer resins to glass surfaces. Organo-functional silane coupling agents used in the prior art include amino-functional silanes, acrylamido-functional silanes, allyl-functional silanes, vinyl-functional silanes, acrylate-functional silanes, methacrylate-functional silanes, and mercapto-functional silanes. Furthermore, academic and industrial researchers have for many years been investigating a variety of methods for applying thin organic films to a myriad of surfaces (see, for example: (a) Ullman, A. An Introduction to Ultrathin Organic Films: From Langmuir-Blodgett to Self-Assembly; Academic Press: San Diego, 1991; (b) Weck, M.; Jackiw, J. J.; Rossi, R. R.; Weiss, P. S.; Grubbs, R. H. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 1999, 121, 4088-9; (c) Duchet, J.; Chapel, J.-P., Chabert, B.; Gerard, J.-F. Macromolecules 1998, 31, 8264-72; (d) Zhao, B.; Brittain, W. J.; Vogler, E. A. Macromolecules 1999, 32, 796-800; (e) Bateman, J. E.; Eagling, R. D.; Worrall, D. R.; Horrocks, B. R.; Houlton, A. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 1998, 37, 2683-5; (f) Effenberger, F.; Götz, G.; Bidlingmaier, B.; Werstein, M. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 1998, 37, 2462-4; (g) O'Brien, S.; Keates, J. M.; Barlow, S.; Drewitt, M. J.; Payne, B. R.; O'Hare, D. Chem. Mater. 1998, 10, 4088-99; and references therein) the disclosures of which have appeared in the open literature and are incorporated herein by reference.
Polyolefin compositions, including polydicyclopentadiene (poly-DCPD), may be prepared using catalyzed olefin metathesis reactions such as, for example, ring opening metathesis polymerization (ROMP). Such olefin metathesis reactions and suitable metathesis catalysts (e.g., ruthenium- or osmium-based catalysts) have been previously described in, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,312,940, 5,342,909, 5,728,917, 5,710,298, 5,831,108, and 6,001,909; PCT Publications WO 97/20865, WO 97/29135 and WO 99/51344; in U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 60/142,713 filed Jul. 7, 1999 entitled “ROMP Reactions Using Imidazolidine-Based Metal Carbene Metathesis Catalysts;” and by Fürstner, Picquet, Bruneau, and Dixneuf in Chemical Communications, 1998, pages 1315-1316, the disclosures of each of which are incorporated herein by reference.
The aforementioned surface coupling agents, however, are not active in olefin ROMP reactions; rather, their efficacy as adhesion agents for ROMP polymers, such as poly-DCPD, is primarily the result of attractive London dispersion forces, also known as van der Waal's interactions, which are the weakest type of intermolecular forces. Thus, there exists a need for metathesis-active adhesion agents that provide enhanced adhesion of ROMP polyolefins to various substrate surfaces by covalently incorporating such adhesion agents into these ROMP polyolefins.